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About The Name

People ask me all the time about the name of my blog, Little Hollywood. Little Hollywood was the name of the shantytown down along the shores of what is now Capitol Lake, a place where some lively characters of Olympia lived. It was our "Hooverville" from the 1920s through the early 1950s. Well, as we know, our area has a lot of interesting, talented, educated characters, and the point of this blog is to help shine the light on some of our "stars" that might not ordinarily be heard through corporate media outlets. So, the name has a double meaning. And since it's my blog, it's Janine's Little Hollywood. Enjoy!

About Me

Thank you for visiting my blog! As a photographer, I also have a website, http://www.littlehollywoodphotography.com. I love Olympia and meet a lot of people who tell me great stories. I love to learn, and hope this blog of local news will be just another source of information for you. Please don't be shy to leave comments. I have set it up so the comments are private first, until I publish them, so if you don't want your comment published, just tell me so. And oh yeah, I'd appreciate it if corporate media or other news outlets did not steal my stories. Please ask if you'd like to reprint my story in your publication or at least give credit where credit is due if you read it here first. Associated Press standards consider blogs a legitimate news source and should be treated as such. Thank you!

The Ad Hoc Committee on Police and Community Relations
held its fourth community forum at Olympia High School on Thursday
afternoon.

The forum focused primarily on the experiences and
ideas of youth and was open to all community members
to also share their thoughts about how the Olympia police department can best serve the public.

Several students and staff of Olympia High School were
in attendance, including principal Matt Grant. Several uniformed police
officers were also in attendance, which prompted one adult to say that their
armed presence was difficult for him.

Several students shared stories of their
interactions with local police.

One young man, who is African American, said he
was with a group of friends and one of them had a BB gun. Someone called it into
police, and one officer arrived, who ordered them to the ground. They
complied. One responding officer soon turned into three others because a
neighbor started arguing with the officer.

“I was scared. I didn’t want to become a statistic,”
he said. Asked to elaborate on his feelings about the incident, he said, “Well,
the officer didn’t pull his gun out and I didn’t get shot, so the situation
turned out A+….”

Another African American student said he felt the
Olympia police are better than most.

“They’ve shown me respect,” he said. He said he came
from Tennessee, and said that “things are really bad down there….”Asked what he
would like to see by the Olympia Police Department, he said more forums and
more dialog.

Maddie Hendrickson, 18, shared that she was in a car
accident about a year ago in which a school bus rear-ended her car. She was
uninjured, but said she didn’t feel like she was being heard by the officer, and
he seemed rushed.

“It was a stressful situation and the police could
be calmer,” said Hendrickson. She offered many suggestions for how the police could approach teens with more compassion.

A mother described how her
son has been victimized at Washington Middle School and Olympia High
School due to his African American race.

“There hasn’t been a single year that he hasn’t had
a racial incident here in Olympia,” said Karen Arnold. The Arnold’s have lived
in Olympia for 15 years and came from Tacoma. In the most recent incident last
year at Olympia High School, he was jumped on by another student on the
basketball court and called the “n” word. She says the student was given a half
day suspension.

“….That is not enough,” said Karen Arnold. “….It
gives the message that the behavior is ok….”

Her son, Kardel Arnold, 15, was present and
freely shared his stories and thoughts. Arnold said that when he was in the
sixth and seventh grade, he was harassed all the time. He described a situation
in which he was sitting on the bus and was punched by another student. There
was no disciplinary action to the bully.

“I could be wrong, but I’m 99 percent sure that if
it had been me who had done the punching, I would have been suspended or
expelled,” he said. His mother called the police to see about what could be
done, but they said nothing could be done because the other student did not
threaten Arnold. Conversely, the school said that they couldn’t do anything
because as soon as the police are called, it becomes a police issue, and not a
school issue.

In general, Kardel Arnold says he has nothing against police officers, but he makes sure he
doesn’t move too quickly or make any wrong moves when he sees police around.

Hired last spring, Olympia High School paraeducator Antonio McClinon,
who is African American, said that he would like to
see more people of color on the police force. He also said that there are only
three African American males who work at the school.

McClinon said he spoke with the school
district superintendent a couple of years ago about diversity and what he
thought would be a ten minute conversation turned into an hour. He was pleased
about that, but in terms of recruiting for teaching positions, the process is
difficult, plus, African American teachers who live in the South Sound area tend
to take jobs in Tacoma or Seattle, an environment where they feel more
comfortable.

“….I could easily get a job there, but I want to be
here…. I’m a role model here. It starts with one or two….I am not afraid, I am
concerned….There's so much politics and roadblocks….” he said. The African
American students surrounding McClinon agreed that he was someone that they felt
they could go to if they needed to.

Mr. Grant said that race is frequently an issue at
Olympia High School and acknowledged that it is a challenge for students of
color to come to the school.

“If I could have a request, it would be that we be constantly in training, for the police and administrators, on how to interact with
students of color, learn the issues there, and strategies for creating
dialog. I think we learn a lot from each other and I can’t say enough about how
much we want to engage in dialog, and we can do a lot more. We have a core
group of students willing to engage in dialog but setting those things up are
really difficult….”

He said that in his experience, the school has had several
positive experiences with the police. Grant said they used to have lunchtime
sessions with students of color, but not this year.

“We can always do more,” he said.

The Olympia City Council tasked a group of citizens last year with engaging the community on how the Olympia police can better serve
the public, especially people who do not often have the chance to be
heard. The group has held several forums.
For more information about the group and future meeting dates, go to www.olympiawa.gov.

Editor’s
Note: All individuals in this article consented
to being identified.

Little Hollywood has written many
articles about the Ad Hoc group, police issues, racial
justice, the Olympia Police Department, and excessive use of force by law
enforcement at Little Hollywood, www.janineslittlehollywood.blogspot.com.
Use the search engine to type in key words.

Above: “Throw kindness around like Confetti”sign at Olympia High School.